Rootes of Fame

News flash: Sunbeam Alpines were racing players, too

Feature Article from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

You may be entering this report in a state of shock, but yes, the Sunbeam Alpine was more than a nice little back road car with two seats that was bequeathed with the most fetching tailfins ever to sprout from a British car (sorry, Turner tribe). In the right hands, during the breathy era of sports cars from which it was spawned, it could be a hard, competitive race car, and it acquitted itself respectably in the lower-bore production classes. Sure, absolutely, there were Jaguars, Healeys and Triumphs by the caboodle going at each other at sinuous American venues, but there were more, too. It's just that in the case of the Alpine, most of us haven't heard about it. Too often today, it's recalled mainly as the car that had its utterly orthodox OHV inline-four replaced by a compact Ford V-8 to create the Tiger. Not good, because the Alpine is a more vital car than many realize.
The post-war competition heritage of Sunbeam dates back to 1948, when a Sunbeam-Talbot 90 won the Coupe des Alpes rally. The win likely spurred Sir William Rootes' push to see his Rootes Group expand sales in both Europe and North America. A two-seat evolution in 1953 was called the Alpine. The upward arc of Rootes, and Sunbeam, soared higher with the development of the sporting Rapier, and its subsequent racing and rally successes led to the development of a second-generation Alpine, introduced in 1959, with finned Kenneth Howes lines. It was the first Rootes Group car fitted with front disc brakes, and in original Series I trim, a 1,494cc, 83hp engine that could trace its heritage through the Rapier and back to the original Hillman Minx.
It was the subsequent Alpine, the Series II, which appeared in 1960, that would amass the strongest racing and rally record. A bore increase brought displacement to 1,592cc and output to 86hp, fed by dual downdraft Zeniths. The Series II Alpine would do an honest 100 mph in stock trim, and with an impressively rigid unibody, it was smartly controllable. In the smaller SCCA categories, the Alpine got all it could handle from competition in the form of the MGA and the Porsche 356, but it was a persistent strong finisher. A big reason why was strong backing, either directly through Rootes, or of the back door variety from any number of small dealerships that sold imports aspiring to greater things, which certainly included Sunbeams. Another element in their relative success was its drivers, with or without explicit factory support, who included Ken Miles, Bruce McLaren and Jerry Titus. Before too long, this trio achieved greatness on stages that included Le Mans, the Can-Am and the Trans-Am. Another occasional Alpine driver was Stirling Moss.
Three factory-funded Series II Alpines were on the grid for the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1961 and all three finished, the best placed at 17th overall. At Le Mans in 1962, a coupe-bodied Alpine GT won the Index of Thermal Efficiency, spending just nine minutes in the pits during the entire race, and, amazingly, going the distance without a tire change. In 1964, Don Sessler gassed a Series III Alpine (introduced in 1963) to the SCCA F Production National championship.
Racing, not its supporting role on Get Smart!, made the Alpine's rep in the United States. Back when he was shooting grass-roots road racing during the early Sixties, Dave Friedman made it a point to burn a lot of frames when the Sunbeams skated past his photo position. For all the sports cars that Sunbeam sold in those years, not many photos of them being raced survive, which is too bad, really. As Friedman told it, "The Alpine was a very popular car, and it was very competitive in the class where it ran. Certainly, these cars that had guys like Brabham and Moss driving them were factory backed, but in the end, it all came down to good preparation and good driving."
PHOTO 1
"This was a local race at Santa Barbara in 1962, with Ken Miles, who won in an Alpine, leading the other Alpines of Lew Spencer and Willie West. Spencer was a very well-known car dealer in Southern California, and he was already famous for having raced Morgan Plus Fours out here. He was one of the best-known drivers on the West Coast, and later drove Cobras for Shelby-American, before becoming Shelby's Trans-Am team manager. I believe that Willie West was another dealer of imported cars in California."
PHOTO 2
"During the program for the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix in October 1962, Jack Brabham is attacking the corner here. I knew Jack pretty well, and as you can see here, he definitely stood on the gas, here lapping Nevin Lyon's Porsche. In 1961 and 1962, Brabham and Moss, and, I believe, Bruce McLaren, drove factory-entered cars in the preliminary to the Times Grand Prix, which later became a three-hour enduro. I think that in 1962, it was still called a GT race. Brabham drove that thing hard that day, until it blew up, if I remember right."
PHOTO 3
"On the grid at the Times Grand Prix at Riverside in 1962 is Bruce McLaren. This race is very well remembered today as the first appearance of both the Corvette Z06 and the Shelby Cobra. This was a three-hour race. McLaren was a rising talent at this time, and was driving a works car in Europe for Cooper. The Sunbeam deal was likely a connection he'd made in Europe. He had driven at Sebring and in several Formula 1 races here by then, but he wasn't immensely famous yet. The Times Grand Prix was the best-paying sports car race in the world then, and he and Brabham both led it."
PHOTO 4
"In July 1962, Ken Miles in the number 50 Alpine leads Charlie Gates in the Triumph TR4 and Jerry Titus in the Alpine number 330 at Pomona. Miles won and Titus was fourth. Titus was a nobody at that time, and really still was until the Trans-Am series came along. I would say that Miles was getting some (Sunbeam) support, and that Titus got his support through Hollywood Sports Cars. That way, you were technically getting support from the factory, even though you weren't driving for a factory-backed team."
PHOTO 5
"Willie West has a close lead on Ray Pickering, both in Sunbeam Alpines, at Pomona in August 1962. This was an underpass beneath an entrance road into the L.A. County Fairgrounds. I used to stand there up on top of it and take pictures until some idiot--no, it wasn't me--dropped his camera down onto the race track. Pickering has a nice, scalloped paint job on his Alpine. There were a lot of really nicely finished cars like this one back then. All of these Alpines got some level of help or support, at least from a dealership, if they were any good."
PHOTO 6
"The Lew Spencer/Tom Payne/Jow Sheppard Sunbeam Alpine is about to get lapped by the Ferrari Dino 246 SP of Bob Grossman, Pedro Rodriguez and Alan Connell in the Webster Turns at the 1962 12 Hours of Sebring. I'm sure that Sunbeam had a factory entry here, from Rootes Motors in England. Tom Payne was very well known among sports car racers in the Midwest, and became quite a well-known Cobra driver. He always drove in a suit coat and tie, owned an import car dealership, and later, he ran for Congress."
PHOTO 7
"As for Ray Pickering, here at Pomona, California, in 1962, I know very little about him other than the fact that he was a gentleman driver, and was probably either a salesman or a service manager for that dealership. I live near Costa Mesa now, and the dealership is no longer there. Most of the guys who raced cars like these back then were sponsored by car dealers like Harbor Motors, or they may have worked in sales, been mechanics or managers, or otherwise did something for the company. This Pomona event was a Cal Club race."

This article originally appeared in the July, 2007 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.